URGENT MESSAGE TO CANADIANS

[funem]

The entertainment industry has had the ability to circumvent civil liberties in the pursuit of greed, while government have bowed down through lack of understanding and pressure from said companies.

Banning flash cards is also the equivalent of banning blank media, DVD etc, just in case, you put a pirate copy of something on it

A flash card's main purpose is to play pirated games, its intended purpose was as a development tool. If there was a flash card with less memory on it than a game uses it would be left alone. Its not the case that you might put a game onto it, its that you probably would put a game onto it.

In regards to the industry, what if we all fell in love with a new game by an independent developer but we didn't buy if and because of poor sales that company went bust or we never saw that game continue on to a full series. This has happened before and will happen again. Beyond Good & Evil was on the edge of not having a sequel due to poor sales, thankfully it did, and that is with the second biggest publisher behind it.

What its used for and what It can be used for should not be at question, like I said if you buy and knife it does not mean you are going to use it to kill someone.

Beyond good and evil had poor sales through lack of marketing and the lack of confidence in the game from the publisher not because of pirating. It sold badly on the GameCube which had little to no piracy whatsoever.

Banning flash cards is also the equivalent of banning blank media, DVD etc, just in case, you put a pirate copy of something on it, the analogy holds true.

 

[Deleted User]

well what are they going to do, search every Canadian's house for flashcarts?

 

[Ace Gunman]

well what are they going to do, search every Canadian's house for flashcarts?

You're thinking in the short term. Sure, we all might be safe at home with out flashcarts now. But what about when you want a new one? You won't be able to buy it from many of the fine retailers online as most of them are Canadian and will be shut down, and even if you do find a retailer to ship to you it will be stopped on the way here after which you will be fined for attempting to buy one.

So yeah, sure, it's fine for those of us who already have one; but what about those who don't? Or what if you have an R4 and three years from now they come out with the R4-DS Megacard (or something). You won't be able to buy a new model. If Nintendo comes out with a new handheld which uses a completely different media type, you won't be legally able to purchase it, and if you do you run the risk of a massive fine.

 

[funem]

The irony of it all is that these laws are being proposed by companies that have broken the law themselves more than the people they are supposedly trying to protect themselves from, plagiarism, intellectual theft, monopolising, copyright infringement, deformation of character, insider dealing, its laughable really.

 

[Renegade_R]

Welcome to capitalist North America....the true north where the rich is free.

I have signed it and sent it.

And yes you people may not be worried now but what happens when you get fined $500 a song because it legalizes scanning robots to basically ding you and kill you financially either through fines or legal fees.

 

[abaddon41_80]

I would really like to help you guys out

 

[Kbs]

Dang this sucks. My friend was looking to buy one since I just got my CycloDS 2 weeks ago! He's gonna be extremely p*ssed.

 

[Arkansaw]

I would really like to help you guys out

It's either we start making the carts ourselves or we make direct orders to the far east.

 

[Psyfira]

The funny thing is, if the games companies supported homebrew developers in the first place then they wouldn't be in this mess. Shutting out the home developers who don't have a couple of hundred quid to blow on a devkit, or completely (*cough*Nintendo*cough*) was a very bad move. The games industry started with children programming in their bedrooms, if the current bigwigs think they can wreck it, slam the doors shut and keep it to themselves in the name of profit then they've got another think coming. Can't have your cake and eat it.

The point is that regardless of what they're used for now the carts / modchips were developed by home developers who wouldn't sit back and let a company shut them out of playing with their nice expensive toys. They really shouldn't be surprised. And more to the point, this is the perfect chance for them to change. This generation is lost, but if the next generation of consoles are accessible and they don't force developers to circumvent the piracy locks to run their own software then I bet there'll be a sharp decline in devices capable of running pirated software.

 

[blu9987]

well modchips are already illegal in the USA. Remember the raids a few months back?
I say its lucky you guys have had them for so long

 

[Zim05]

Every county has their own dumb problems =/
Here in germandy, they will Log everything from the 1st next year... (IP & the user, Phone calls etc), and we had some change in the copyright too, AFAIK it's now illegal just to download software (So even load something without knowing what exactly it is, it could mean to go into illegality~) so its not only canada with crappy things planned.

And your rated M games are rated AO unless they are censored

 

[Defiance]

Wow, this really sucks. I'm going to send a letter. Although, if they were stupid enough to amend this law, their probably not going to listen to the letters.

 

[shazattaz]

i did the automatic letter thing, i hope we aren't too late...

we have (maybe had soon) some of the most relaxed copyright laws in the world, i hope we can keep it that way.

:/

 

[The Teej]

I've been going around, sending this everywhere I can...

Neowin, Zelda Power, ps2dev, N64 Projects, EmuTalk, Fentendo, Noob Galore...

About to do the rounds on the social networking sites - and then IRC chans. God Speed, Gunman, God Speed...

 

[Zaraf]

Kicktrading and www.foundmy.com are both Canadian based....it would suck to see those two great distributors get shut down

 

[ehrgeiz22]

sent the mail

 

[da_head]

sent

 

[amazingnoob]

sent the mail. now getting my friends to send it as well.

 

[The Teej]

Just done the rounds on Facebook and Myspace to the best of my abilities. Any canadian friends on Bebo I have I've already told elsewhere.

 

[Ace Gunman]

Just done the rounds on Facebook and Myspace to the best of my abilities. Any canadian friends on Bebo I have I've already told elsewhere.

There's a facebook group for this actually: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6315846683 I can't check it out because I don't do facebook, but for those who do, it could be a big help.